So, ITV1 have given all their money away to wife beaters and rapists. This is the new way. As such, this essentially means you have to watch X Factor twice, because they can't afford to make any new TV programmes. Thank god Kelly Rowland agreed to work overtime due to how much she believes in music. (Cocaine.)
Talk Talk have given stop-frame animation a go and simultaneously ired the entire board of the Academy Awards as a result.
This week we are visiting MANCHESTER. Although the show isn't in chronological order or anything, so basically we're just looking? at the bits they filmed in Manchester. Or at least ITV1?s edited version of Manchester, which involves a lot of day-glo and mystical interchangeable skies, apparently. Or Hogwarts, if you will. Due to the fact that ITV1 are not culturally familiar with the ’80s ‘Madchester’ scene, we must settle for gratuitous tracking shots of Selfridges over and over to fully understand where we are. Come to think of it, the true meaning of Manchester probably is ?18 lip gloss.
And, being in Manchester of COURSE means we must have a chat about Gary Barlow. Because Gary Barlow is from Cheshire, which is an entirely different county. And Hitler was from Austria. And that's what happens when you collect your primary sources of research from Bing.
Nonetheless, we are all treated to a delightful smorgasbord?of everyone in Manchester being incredibly excited to meet someone who lives NEAR MANCHESTER. Kelly Rowland talks about all the lies Gary Barlow has told her about Manchester, coked out of her mind and having an amazing time as the backlog of Bez? family tree try and touch the hems of her clothes. We wish we were Kelly Rowland. Gary Barlow sings Manchester?s national anthem ?Manchester Na Na Na Na?. He also wears a waistcoat as he does this, presumably because he likes to punish people and hit women. You are watching ITV1 remember.
Our first contestants of the episode are two gay men who are gay and totally FINE with it. They are either called Kendal, or Kenco, or Ken Dodd, or Amazon Kindle. One of those. ?They wear hats and have primary colours in their hair, and one or both of them is/are Grace Jones. So far, so ‘good’. Upon entering the big blue shiny stage where blas? dreams come true, the pair talk to the judges for a while about how stupid they are, and everyone thinks they're brilliant as a result. The pair decide to give Lady Gaga ?a whirl?, because avant garde pop music on mainstream television could work if we just dared to open our eyes a mid-quarter.
And then, in the world's greatest tribute to Salvador Dali the world has ever seen (Because it certainly wasn’t THIS, was it?), the pair apply some lip gloss (TRUE MEANING OF MANCHESTER) before launching into their performance – much to the fury and downright odium of Gary Barlow. The cameras do NOT cut to Louis Walsh at that moment, which shows self-control and integrity. Perhaps if ITV1 had used those aforementioned traits more often, Show Me The Funny might have never made it to air.
Kendro, or Eoghan Quigg or whatever they're called start singing their god-awful rendition of Lady Gaga. All the judges (Including Louis Walsh who has been judging talent show competitions for well over a decade) seem absolutely dumbfounded that two men could DARE to come on stage and sing vaguely out of tune.
Tulisa Cocacobanathehottestspotnorthofsavana honestly doesn't know if they can make it as serious music artists, which is a really grave concern, obviously. About five minutes later however, she professes that she would ?spread them on her toast?, which is probably the same thing that EMI said to The Beatles, so nothing to worry about after all. ?Gary Barlow hates them with every fibre of his being, but that’s only because he’s a bit iffy about sodomy, so fair enough. They get through.
Ad break ? Rihanna is still harping on about how amazing Capital FM is.
Meanwhile, the X Factor are STILL in Manchester. The replacement bus service must have been delayed again. A segment of absolutely no importance to a post-9/11 dystopia is then shown, where the judges are shown riding around in custom-made X Factor BUGGIES. LOL, the economy.
A couple more auditions just for the hell of it. And to make matters worse, these are?integrated?with what terrifyingly?sounds like a dubstep version of Another One Bites the Dust, which is just incredibly unfair. Following this – a woman sings It’s Raining Men, despite the crippling menopause, and another man sings badly too, so we guess that’s fifteen-love.
Although there have only been a couple of subtly, evenly dispersed montages on the audition stages of the show this year, we hate to be killjoys, but this particular one gives us the mild desire to eat benign cysts for breakfast. It feels as if the montage will never quite end. Eventually, it does. Unless of course it never actually ended, and we’re now just hooked up to a simulated reality?created by sentient machines in order?to pacify and subdue the human popula- Oh no wait, that’s probably The Matrix.
Meanwhile, the nation?s prayers for a leopard print Indiana Jones style-incarnation of Mary Byrne were finally answered in the shape of Samantha Brookes. Good ol, down to earth Samantha Brookes and her eyebrows. God, those eyebrows. They look like they were designed by the same people who did the Olympics 2012 logo.
Kelly Rowland loves her so much that she threatens to crowd surf. Thankfully, she doesn’t, but we have to say it was pretty touch and go for a second there. All these spontaneous threats and jibes Kelly Rowland has been making lately… this sounds like the early stages of a chronic depressive episode rather than a job on the X Factor, if you ask us. One minute you’re laughing happily, next thing you know, you’re rolling in to the BBC at 5am trying to audition for Celebrity Fame Academy. Just a warning.
Samantha worries that her weight may be a particular grievance to her upcoming career as a pop singer. ?The fact that she sings rubbish and has no taste or any knowledge on the correct curvature of eyebrows ?is not addressed. Kelly, spokeswomen of female equality and advocate of first-wave feminism since 1792 announces to the universe that YES, Samantha has a size. And that size is Size ‘SEXY’, completely abolishing the whole prospect of anthropometry AND prejudice in one fail swoop. WE’LL HAVE WHAT’S SHE’S HAVING. In a clean syringe, if that’s alright.
Next up is a girl group called Twisted. MENTAL name, we know, but just go with it. By god, these women are wearing polkadot dresses just like they used to do in something mental like the 1950s! Like Kate Nash x 1000! INCREDIBLE. God, we miss The Pipettes. Now that Belle Amie are going through their neo-classical metal phase, Twisted are exactly what we need. This literally could not get any better. One of the singers, who is called Chrissie Pitt (which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t matter, but we just thought we’d be thorough.) ? ‘reveals’ that she auditioned for the show as a soloist last year. Now this year she is back! With loads of retards in New Look?s 2008 collection, and a goth. The girls perform their ?take? on ANADELESONGANADELESONGANADELESONG, which involve some pretty amazing Katie Waissel-style ?shoop shoops? admittedly, but shockingly the judges don't go for it, and want to see Chrissie Pitt sing on her own.
We wonder why that could be? Not because the whole thing has been scripted so that the other girls can fob off and the soloist can get some extra attention in the editing process for when she makes it considerably far to the later stages of the competition, surely? No, that's a really insensitive thing to suggest. Definitely not that reason. The reason is of COURSE that she is simply amazing and brilliant and is definitely going to be the new Kurt Cobain, so let’s not hear another word about it.
Oh, and she sang ‘Forget You’ while her friends seethed through their tears at the side of the stage. How d’ya like them apples?
After the break, Dermot O Leary had the audacity to show up to his job half-way through the programme and said something insignificant about how some people like to sing and more words of that particular?calibre. Intuitive, Dermot. Absolutely Magneto-esque.
Then we got introduced to Lascel Wood. But wait, there’s more! He is 20 years old, and from Brighton. As we will steadily come to learn, Lascel likes to mix things up. Even such trivial matters such as exchanging social pleasantries. For example, instead of saying “Hello”, Lascel would tend to say something along the lines of ?Hello my name is Lascel and I am 20 years of age and I was in foster care? instead, which is such an amazingly snappy ice breaker, that he probably could have single handedly saved the Titanic. Alas, as it is. RIP, RMS Titanic.
Lascel has brought his estranged mentally ill mother with him to his X Factor audition today, which to some might seem a little gratuitous, but we personally believe that Lascel should be knighted for putting up with her on the Metrolink on the way up. Lascel morosely explains to the judges that his mother has been suffering from ?Bi-polar?, which we thought was just the name of Kerry Katona?s dog or something, but turns out to be a very serious mental disorder, which is pretty embarrassing. But none of that matters anyway, because Lascel probably wouldn't have brought any of that up had the judges not beat him to a pulp and practically RAPED IT OUT OF HIM, so fair enough.
Lascel sings a soul version of a Kings of Leon song, because Jo Whiley?s work will never be done. People generally think he sounds quite good. Even his sectioned, mentally ill mother can recognise a damn good treble voice vibrato when she hears one, so it’s win-win-win, as Lascel gets a standing ovation. Kelly Rowland ascends triumphantly from the desk with half her pant suit round her ankles, like the Monica Lewinsky that Britain never had. Lascel concludes that he feels emotional. We quite agree.
And on that note, we're going to go and lie in our beds wide-eyed and alone until the second?instalment?which takes place tomorrow night. Yeah, really. You have to do this all again tomorrow. It’s fine though, because you’re lonely enough to do that.
X Factor Review Week 4, Part 2 continues tomorrow…
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